Too Much Tinkering Disrupts The Effectiveness Of Education

November 10, 1986|By George Will, Washington Post Writers Group

WASHINGTON — A '60s sensibility is slinking back into public life, this time in conservative judicial activism that is as pernicious as liberal activism. In the Tennessee textbook case, conservatives have invoked, as '60s radicals did, ''sincerity'' as a legimitizing license for turning schools into arenas of conflict.

The decision is that parents' and pupils' First Amendment right to ''free exercise'' of religion is unconstitutionally ''burdened'' if pupils are exposed to instructional material distressingly at odds with their religious beliefs. The judge said a controlling fact must be the uncontested sincerity of the plaintiffs' beliefs about Holt, Rinehart & Winston readers--readers used in 15,000 school districts.

The judge said: ''The plaintiffs have sincerely held religious beliefs which are entitled to protection under the . . .'' Hold it. Constitutional protection of belief? Protection from what? Literature? The free-exercise clause protects a broad sphere of conduct. However, it is not a guarantee of intellectual spiritual serenity, or a commitment to protect parents and children from influences that might complicate the transmission of sectarian beliefs.

The Tennessee plaintiffs objected to works such as ''The Diary of Anne Frank'' (Anne said having some religion was more important than having a particular religion) and ''The Wizard of Oz'' (it contains a good witch and implies that virtues can be acquired without God's help), concepts of death contrary to Biblical teaching, and all stimulation of children's imaginations ''beyond the limitations of scriptural authority.'' The Tennessee judge's understanding of the ''free-exercise'' right would empower elementary-school pupils to leave the room if readings threaten to cause distress.

The Supreme Court has held that the free-exercise guarantee was violated when a Jehovah's Witness was denied unemployment compensation after resigning from a firm rather than accept transfer to armaments work; or when a similar denial of a state benefit resulted because a Seventh Day Adventist quit a job rather than work on Saturday; or when a diploma was denied to a student who, on religious grounds, refused to attend state-required ROTC training.

In these cases, state benefits were made contingent on conduct violative of a central religious tenet. The Tennessee case was quite different. The plaintiffs were not seeking exemption from forbidden conduct but exemption from exposure to disturbing thoughts. In the cases the Supreme Court has decided, the religious persons only sought access to a state benefit. In Tennessee, the plaintiffs insisted that the benefit (education) be tailored to their tastes.

Imagine the claims and counter-claims that will be litigated in every school district when word gets around that the ''free-exercise'' clause is a guarantee against state action discomfiting to sincerely held theistic notions. But surely elective participation in public education cannot be tailored to sectarian sensibilities without violating another clause of the First Amendment -- the ban on any ''establishment'' of religion. ''Establishment'' would be the clear consequence of state action to satisfy the plaintiff's insistence that their children not be exposed to ideas they consider contrary to scripture or ''that might cause confusion'' about religious beliefs.

Parents have a constitutional right to send children to private schools, even inferior ones, where they will be protected from serious literature and other disturbing influences. But chaos must result when parents are invested with a right to fine-tune their children's cooperation with a public-school curriculum.

Pluralism depends on tolerance of diversity, a value subverted by assertion of a constitutional right to retreat from all but comforting instruction. Furthermore, there is a social interest not only in pluralism but in commonality, in a shared grammar of the intellect. That must involve acquaintance with facets of history, science and literature that are problematic for certain religious mentalities.

But religious irritability is rising, and in America irritability begets litigation; the Tennessee case shows how litigation can cause an exponential increase in irritability.

Worse may be on the way. In an Alabama textbook case, parents charge that texts do not do justice to the contributions of religion to American history. This charge probably is well-founded. But imagine a ruling that the use of such texts abridges parents' ''free-exercise'' right, or ''establishes'' the ''religion'' of ''secular humanism.''

If a court holds that bad teaching is unconstitutional, conservative judicial activism will have produced a judicial supervision of American life far more intrusive than liberal activism has achieved.